


Rust

by sciencefictioness



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Demons, M/M, Magic, Violence, Writing Exercise, this is weird i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 17:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10417173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencefictioness/pseuds/sciencefictioness
Summary: “Don’t forget what I told you.  Still got that stone?”  Levi clenched it in his fist, thumb rubbing at the sharp edges of it, leather cord falling between his fingers.  Nails jagged, snagging on the rough surface.“Not sure it makes a difference.  I ain’t got no magic, I ain’t a seer, or a witch.”  The driver grinned at him, nodding up at his hat, smiling slow and devious.“Got something though, don’t ya?”  Levi reached up, tugging it down tighter over his head, self conscious.  “Just head on down this path, and hold onto that stone.  You start feeling weird, just think about things you know are true.  Tell him Zoe sent you.  He can help.  Just tell him what happened to you.”Ashes, and lightning.The earth shaking under his feet.Fire.  The taste of coal.  Soot in his fists, hands glowing like embers.  Burning.Everything burning.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Dove is Old West slang for a prostitute. 
> 
> This was an exercise in minimalistic writing. There will probably be more.
> 
> It probably won't answer your questions, or at least not all of them. This is a lot different than the way I usually write. Anyway, enjoy.

 

“He can help you,” they said, pulling off the road at the edge of town to let Levi climb out the stagecoach.

 

Glass clanked together as he jumped down, hundreds of little bottles filled with a muted rainbow of crystalline liquids sloshing and settling.  He didn’t know what was in them.

 

Didn’t want to know.

 

_ ‘He’ can help you. _

 

“Thought it was a dove who lived out here, tossed out by Madame Reiss.”  The driver of the stagecoach tilted their head, sunlight glinting off their eyeglasses, an unsettling grin on their face.

 

“Is that what you thought?”  Levi shrugged.  Blood in his mouth.  Dripping from underneath his Stetson, drying, mixed with sweat and dirt.  His temples throbbed, and eyes stung.  It felt like all his teeth had been knocked out and then shoved back into his jaw.

 

“ ‘S’what they say.  Best dove in town if you don’t mind the ride out, and ain’t planning on staying the night.”

 

The stagecoach driver hummed, shotgun propped up between their knees, their face pressed into the length of the barrel.  

 

“Don’t forget what I told you.  Still got that stone?”  Levi clenched it in his fist, thumb rubbing at the sharp edges of it, leather cord falling between his fingers.  Nails jagged, snagging on the rough surface.

 

“Not sure it makes a difference.  I ain’t got no magic, I ain’t a seer, or a witch.”  The driver grinned at him, nodding up at his hat, smiling slow and devious.

 

“Got something though, don’t ya?”  Levi reached up, tugging it down tighter over his head, self conscious.  “Just head on down this path, and hold onto that stone.  You start feeling weird, just think about things you know are true.  Tell him Zoe sent you.  He can help.  Just tell him what happened to you.”

 

Ashes, and lightning.  

 

The earth shaking under his feet.

 

Fire.  The taste of coal.  Soot in his fists, hands glowing like embers.  Burning.

 

Everything burning.  Blood on his tongue.  Voices crying through trembling fingers,  _ Santa Maria, madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.... _

Levi shook it all away.  ‘Tell  _ him  _ Zoe sent you.’  Levi frowned at them, brows furrowed, licking across his teeth.

 

“Is…  Is  _ he  _ a dove?”  The driver seemed to consider him for a moment, thoughtful.

 

“Do you want him to be?”

 

Levi thought of his mother.  The familiar blue of a day old bruise, the telltale swelling of a broken nose.  

 

“No.  I really don’t.”

 

…

 

Levi was halfway down the path before things began shifting on him.  Nothing was out of place, and yet everything was wrong.  The dry desert scrubland around him was ubiquitous, the same for miles and miles all around, sprawling out in every direction endlessly. 

 

So why could he smell flowers?  

 

The sun beat down on him, merciless as it always was in the most brutal days of summer.

 

So why could he feel a cool breeze teasing at his skin?

 

He clutched the necklace he’d been given in his fist.  Kept walking, the house at the end of the path a stuttering mirage, flitting in and out of sight through the distortion of the punishing heat.  Things that were true.  Simple things.  Easy things.

 

The sky was blue.  

 

_ Is it though? _

 

A voice whispered, hushed and conspiratorial.

 

Levi’s head snapped around, searching for the source of the voice.  It seemed to come from everywhere at once, but also from within him.  The wind picked up, carrying more words, blowing at him from all sides.

 

_ Sometimes the sky is gray with stormclouds, or red with evening sunlight.  Black poured around a blanket of stars. _

 

The very air around him shivered.  A snake slithered across his path from out of nowhere.  A coyote yipped in the distance, lonely and forlorn.

 

Things that were true.  

 

The sun rises in the east.

 

Something flashed up ahead, bright with color before washing back out to brown, the ever present palette of the badlands.

 

The voice in his ears, the wind at his face, lilting and devious.

 

_ There are places where the sun stays in the sky for months, and then sinks below the horizon all winter.  _

 

Levi tightened his grip on the stone, forcing himself forward when everything in him wanted to flee.  He could hear water.  The closest river was half a day’s ride.  A bird sang, strange and unfamiliar, a song he’d never heard before.  The house in front of him was not closer, despite how far he’d walked.  He tasted coal.  His head ached.  

 

Things that were true.  Every thought that passed through his head was met with fever dream whispers of argument, and each step forward held him in place, the world trembling as far as the eye could see.  Blood throbbing through his veins, lungs desperate for air, instincts telling him to run.

 

Water is wet.

 

_ Not when it’s frozen. _

 

Rain falls from the sky.

 

_ And sits in the clouds, and pools on the ground. _

 

Levi wanted to cry, suddenly, wanted to scream.  It felt like he was being torn to pieces.  The stone in his fist sliced into his palm, and little red drops of him fell to the earth to dry in vicious sunlight.  His nose was bleeding.  His bones cracked and groaned.

 

_ My mother is dead.  My friends are lost.   _

 

_ Something inhuman has crawled into me, and I am both dangerous and afraid. _

 

Everything dissolved, melting away in a fog, and Levi was standing in the middle of a forest.  The house at the end of the path was in front of him, abruptly, crawling with wisteria.  There was a coyote on the porch, wagging its tail like a dog, tongue lolling from its mouth.

 

Flowers grew like weeds all around, and a stream bubbled up from nothing to twist around most of property.  There was a bridge behind him that he had never crossed.  

 

A man stood in the doorway, surprised but not displeased, looking Levi up and down.

 

“Felt something pushing at my glamour pretty hard.  Didn’t ‘spect anyone to get through it so easy though.  Speak of the devil, and he will appear.”  The same voice as all those whispers, air thrumming with energy all around him.  Brown hair, and green eyes, and tanned skin.  

 

Levi took off his hat.  Scratched at the horns curling up from his temple.  

 

Blinked his ink black eyes at the man, staring.  

 

Wished he was a dove, for the briefest of seconds, because he’d never seen anyone so goddamned beautiful.

 

“Zoe sent me.  Said you could help.”  One corner of the man’s mouth quirked up. 

 

“Maybe not the way you want me to.”

 

Levi shrugged, resting his hat over his heart, feeling like he might faint.

 

“I reckon I’d take whatever I can get.”

  
There was thunder, and a burst of lightning, and then it began to rain.  


End file.
